A 25-year-old man who abducted a teenage Spanish student and raped her repeatedly over a 21-hour period will be sentenced next week.
Eoin Berkley of Hampton Wood Way, Finglas, Dublin admitted three counts of raping the girl at the Irish Glass Bottle Company site, Pigeon House Road at a time unknown between July 15th and 16th, 2017. The Central Criminal Court heard he wrote an apology in his own blood on the wall of a cell he was being held in.
The 18-year-old student, described as naive and shy, had come to Ireland in early July to improve her English and was staying with a host family in Dublin.
She was on a day out in the city centre on a Saturday afternoon when she met Berkley who told her he lived on the beach and invited her to see where he lived. She agreed and walked with him to derelict site near Sandymount where he had a number of tents pitched.
Once inside the tent his mood changed, he pushed her to the ground and grabbed her hands. She told him he was hurting her but he laughed and told her she was stupid and that he had “done this before”.
She left the tent but Berkley dragged her back in. He tied her hands up behind her back using a dog leash and told her he had previously killed six people and was going to kill her.
He repeatedly tried to strangle her and and at one point he picked up a small saw and told her that if she didn’t stop struggling he would cut her hands off.
She begged him to kill her in the least painful way possible and he gave her some tablets and he then put some black gloves on. She took the tablets and fell down and he began abusing her.
‘No feelings about people’
Over the hours that followed Berkley raped the woman on three separate occasions. On the Sunday he told her he wasn’t going to kill her until Monday.
He told her that if she tried to run away he would throw a rock at her head. He told her that he’d stopped having feelings about people since the age of ten and said he had cut the paws off household pets.
The victim escaped when Berkley took her down to the beach and he fell asleep. In the meantime the family she was staying with in Dublin and her parents in Spain had raised the alarm when she failed to make contact on Saturday evening.
On escaping the victim rang her father, telling him she was running from a man and told him: “I’ve being kidnapped. I’m going to be killed”. Her father told the court this was the worst phone-call a father could ever get.
The victim told gardaí that she was terrified and knew if she tried to escape she had to be successful.
“I knew that I would have only one real chance to escape. He had total control of my life over these days. I was terrified,” she said.
The court heard that medical tests found morphine, codeine and cannabis present in her body after the attack. She suffered bruising to her wrist, arms, legs and neck.
Afraid of the dark
In a victim impact statement read into court by counsel, the woman said she had to take medication for months after the rape in case of infections. She said she thought she was going to be killed during the attack and she is now afraid to sleep in the dark.
She said she thinks about what happened every day, saying: “I was afraid, I did not want to be afraid.”
Berkley’s 25 previous convictions include unlawful possession of knives and a realistic firearm and threatening and abusive behaviour.
After the hearing at the Central Criminal Court Mr Justice Michael White adjourned sentencing to next week, saying that time was needed to consider the appropriate sentence.
He said that the victim was violated in a horrendous way. He said there was a collective sense of shame that somebody visiting Ireland had suffered in such a vile way.
He remanded the accused in continuing custody to Thursday November 1st.
Before this, defence counsel, Michael Bowman SC told the court his client went into foster care at the age of four as his mother had psychological problems which were compounded by alcohol. At the age of 14 his foster care situation broke down because of his own behavioural difficulties and he was institutionalised at Ballydowd, a facility for unruly youths.
Counsel said after leaving Ballydowd he had lived in flux mostly in homelessness, often coming to garda attention in situations which caused concerns around his mental health.
A month before the kidnap and rape a garda inspector in the Dublin city area directed his detention under the Mental Health Act. He was seen by a doctor who deemed him fit to be released.
Two days later, Berkley’s brother rang a garda station and said Berkley needed to be detained under the Act. Gardaí told him there was no basis for his detention and advised that Berkley seek medical care.